On Attaining Spiritual Sight (Part I)

[AshvinP]

Moreover, I did not express an opinion on whether or not there is any risk of striving too much towards Health with a capital H, although, for example, Rodriel repeatedly did - but for some reason it didn't seem to trouble you much - and there are indeed reasons to think that the path of higher cognition is far from devoid of risks. In any case, all this is well beyond the topic we were discussing, and your attempt to oppose my reports on Steiner's occult physiology doesn't make much sense.

That is exactly the issue I have been offering my critical thoughts to Rodriel on the other thread. This emphasis on 'practical occult physiology' as a parallel approach of medicine to higher cognitive development is exactly analogous to (or an example of) Petrine thinking as a parallel path (for the 'unprepared souls') to John thinking. That's what I hinted to in one of the initial posts:

This topic has basically come up on the 'attaining spiritual sight' thread on the forum as well, among other places, in terms of the 'horizontal' and the 'vertical' vectors of development (and it's interesting to contemplate how this same theme emerges in the most varied forms, which can help sensitize us to shared soul curvatures that shape imaginative content at the surface).

So indeed all of my subsequent comments on that thread have been expressing my 'troubles' with this dualized spectrum of thinking. Kaje asked about Health (as Cleric expressed it) and how we can understand it from Steiner's perspective. I am simply trying to clarify that (a) Steiner understood it exactly the same way Cleric expressed it and (b) Steiner consistently emphasized that higher cognitive development is the pathway to restoring Health in the near future. In fact, as far as I can see, he never talks about these ideals being remote, inaccessible to most people without clairvoyance, or anything similar. He always emphasizes that Anthroposophical medicine, which broadly includes also curative eurythmy (artistic practice), Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, etc. (since these are all a means of helping to infuse Health into the wider population), will provide transformative cures to illness (not just temporary symptom relief, like most modern medicine). In other words, it will help get humanity off the hamster wheel of the 'sick care' industry, which is motivated primarily by the egoistic desire for keeping souls in a state of inner dependence on end-user technologies, physical experiments, specialized research, carefully guarded medicines, and so on, ensuring that everyone keeps their super high-paying jobs and the profits keep rolling in. Anthroposophical medicine has been introduced into the scene of spiritual evolution to counter and invert that horizontal path of unimaginative physical science.

[AshvinP]

In terms of astral body = illness, we can get a proper orientation if we also account for what we are doing when studying these psycho-physical relationships. For example, Steiner expressed:


https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA319/En ... 24p02.html

If the forces connected with growth in the organism were not continually being repressed, man's being of soul and Spirit could never function. The very manifestations which in the normal condition of mankind turn to illness, to retrogression of development, must indeed exist in order that he may become a thinking being. If man could not be ill, he could not be a spiritual being. If the functions of thinking, feeling and willing manifest in an abnormal form, man falls ill. The liver and kidneys must carry out the very same processes that give rise to thinking, to feeling and to willing; but these processes lead to disease when they arise in exaggerated form. The fact that man can be ill makes it also possible for him to be a being who can think, feel and will.

Yet when our thinking, feeling, and willing is aligned toward intimately understanding these relationships, do they not begin to function differently? Do we imagine that Steiner has given us these lectures to contemplate as a poison, as a retrogressive means of development? Obviously not. If what we are doing when working through such lectures (meditatively) is fundamentally a constructive and health-restoring process, then the astral body must be functioning differently than it is in its normal waking engagement with the physical spectrum that provides us self-consciousness. By exploring the supersensible relationships and becoming more intimately conscious of our inner process of becoming, the astral functions are being transformed. And as soon as we begin to sense this process of transformation (and all the inner factors that consistently resist it), we simply won't feel any practical need to emphasize the astral = illness equivalence (because we have experienced the "=" becoming more of "~~" ) and we will instead feel that 'one-sided' striving toward this transformation is absolutely necessary in our time, given the extreme level of soul sickness we have inherited.

[Cleric]

Could you explain the significance of Health in Spiritual Science? You're more experienced here than us, so I'd appreciate a deeper description if you don't mind : -) I assume Health is probably not the way health is commonly understood in daily life, or at least, just a minor aspect of something deeper. Your statement "Health is the musical expression of Body, Soul and Spirit in resonance with the Cosmos" seems to hint to something much more deeper, more profound and seems to make more sense.

This all becomes very clear once we begin to transition from the flat Newtonian view toward the contextual structure of Time. One of the early attempts to formulate such things was in the Time-Consciousness essay. A little more precise inner phenomenology was attempted with the Phonograph Metaphor. Basically, once we begin to recognize our inner flow as superimposed rhythms (which are not metaphysical entities but inner activity at different scales) then this musical contextuality of the Cosmos becomes something much more tangible for our intellectual being. The most basic exercise in this direction is to make a habit of regularly stopping throughout the day, and simply recognizing the temporal contextuality of the Now - where are we, what are we doing, what are we thinking about, why are we thinking it, is it part of a greater pattern, an interest, fear, goal, in what direction are we pushing our actions and thoughts, what should happen if we are to consider that this pushing has fulfilled its purpose (that is, do we recognize what we are striving to achieve through our will and thinking, what are we trying to push the movie of existence into)? In a sense, just like a movie frame fits within the contextual structure of the story, so we strive to comprehend each of our Now frames within such contextuality. This is still only a preparation, but it nevertheless accustoms us to the kind of thoughts through which we can express the inner contextuality. And, as always, the central secret is that it is our very thoughts that should be felt as manifesting within that contextuality, that is, we do not think about some theoretical contextuality from outside reality, but try to see our thoughts as artistic expressions of the true, living contextuality.

Here's a metaphor. In our thinking life, we metamorphose through successions of different mental images. We can liken this to going through a gallery, and each picture (mental image) anchors a certain intuition. Normally, however, the fact that these images are like picture-in-picture sub-flow within the primary flow of phenomenal existence, remains in the background. In meditation, we strive to experience our mental images like artistic expressions of the real-time primary flow. In the metaphor, this would correspond to walking through a gallery where each picture recursively depicts the fact that we're moving through a gallery and contemplating pictures:



In normal galleries, the pictures can be about anything. If I look at the Mona Lisa, this evokes an intuition that could be quite remote from my personal life. Did such a woman really exist? In what way, if any, does the depicted woman's existence have any relevance to my existence (besides the fact that I enjoy the purely visual appearance)? When, however, our thoughts become such recursive images, then everything that they portray expresses something about the actual contextuality of our existence - the fact that we're walking through the gallery (the concrete meditative session), the fact that we've been somewhere and went into the gallery (our greater life context), and so on. It is easy to feel how Health in the general sense means that these contextual rhythms of our existence become more and more musically attuned, and our intuitive life becomes healthy when we can faithfully grasp this depth and express it in the recursive mental images. The mental images are indeed only images - they are not the same as the intuitive realities they express. If I think about the flow of my destiny, with my intuitive being I stretch out to feel the temporality of my existence, how it streams, but my thinking about it paints a recursive picture that somehow symbolizes these invisible (supersensible) intuitions.

[Cleric]

Astral body = Illness

What has to do with the processes of illness is located in the astral body. What the astral body commits is impressed into the etheric body, and hence illness appears in its imprint in the etheric body, though it is not the etheric body that has to do directly with illness. I have just described to you the imprint of the irregular inter penetration and interworking of the two kinds of ethers. Nevertheless, such irregular action is itself merely an effect of the astral body stamping itself into the etheric body. When the etheric body is perceived more closely, one is led to the astral body. Let us carry this further.

Next we have that which works against disease as its polar opposite—namely, health.

Etheric body = Health

We will not stop to define health now, but you can even see by analogy that health is related to the etheric body as illness is to the astral body and death to the ego. This becomes ever clearer and clearer on spiritual investigation. To heal, to restore health, means to be able to create in the etheric body counterreactions to the processes that produce illness and that proceed from the astral body. One must work from the etheric body in order to paralyze the forces of the astral body, which are the processes producing illness.


From Anthroposophical Spiritual Science and Medical Therapy - Lecture II
as retrieved form the Rudolf Steiner Archive

This quote can be used as a great reminder that every word that we use needs to be grasped in the proper living context. We should be at peace with the fact that our words can always be misunderstood. Thus, we need constant 'annexes' in our conversations. Our exchanges can be seen as gentle dances that continuously overshoot, but if we all earnestly seek the true 'center of gravity', we'll surely find the motivation to keep going.

In the above quote, it's worth remembering that such equations are not some fundamental laws of reality (as discussed in a previous post) but everything needs to be traced back to the activity of spiritual beings. In this particular case, it's the Lu temptation that initially corrupts the astral body. It sets it into strong elastic swings, which lead the soul through tunnels of experience that would otherwise never be attempted. So, if we are to widen the context, it's not that the astral body by its essence is a principle of illness, but the astral body as strained by the Lu forces.

On the other hand, the workings of the etheric body are mainly driven by the archetypal beings of the second hierarchy, and as such, it is the image of greater harmony. That's why we can relate it to health. What the misaligned forces in the astral body throw into chaos through the day, is compensated as far as possible through the night, when the hierarchies can impress their musical nature in the etheric spectrum more unhindered.

I'm not saying this to 'correct' anything said before that, but only to expand the context for everyone, such that we can see how much flexibility we need in every case.

[Cleric]

To add something I didn’t mention yet: that we may become “too healthy” is actually not my own idea. I didn’t say it, because I don’t want to hide behind the words of initiates, but it goes to show how I have become the object of critique, above and beyond the expressed thoughts. Would this same idea have received lightly ironic comments and warnings about the risks of doing evil in order to balance out the pursuit of the good, had "too healthy" not come from Federica, but from a trustworthy name? Unfortunately, this is emblematic of a common recent pattern. These things have been topping up through the years. I’ve been told it was not so important to develop true spiritual perception, and that it would come with the next life; I’ve been routinely lectured, psychologized, and presented with the report of all the wrong thoughts and feelings I supposedly nurture inside; I've been held responsible for other members having become inactive; and today, whatever the deeper reasons, I’m more and more criticized for who I am, through the pretext of what I express. Not that I’m above critique of course, and I will always be thankful to Cleric and Ashvin for bringing Anthroposophy and your related insights to my knowledge, but the discussions have become too constrained and negative at this point, and we might agree on this at least, that a break would be good. While I will surely miss the forum habit and the (hope for) unprejudiced discussion, I need to do the work in calmer psychic conditions, and hopefully you’ll enjoy smoother conversations now.

Hey Federica,
I really hope your decision has only been temporary, coming from a moment of affection. Your presence here is valued, and it is largely thanks to your participation that the forum has been going on. I know that the conversations often go into oscillatory modes, but on the bright side - this is how we all learn. Human exchanges have a long way to go before they become dance-like. At this time we routinely step on each other's feet, we bump, we sometimes don't sense when we should lead and when we should follow. But if we look upon it as a learning process, we'll surely find also the motivation to keep going. Of course, I'm not writing this as an excuse, that we should not worry when we hurt each other, but we surely need to also find the strength to go on perfecting the sacred dance of existence.

[AshvinP]

Moreover, I did not express an opinion on whether or not there is any risk of striving too much towards Health with a capital H, although, for example, Rodriel repeatedly did - but for some reason it didn't seem to trouble you much - and there are indeed reasons to think that the path of higher cognition is far from devoid of risks.

To add something I didn’t mention yet: that we may become “too healthy” is actually not my own idea. I didn’t say it, because I don’t want to hide behind the words of initiates, but it goes to show how I have become the object of critique, above and beyond the expressed thoughts. Would this same idea have received lightly ironic comments and warnings about the risks of doing evil in order to balance out the pursuit of the good, had "too healthy" not come from Federica, but from a trustworthy name? Unfortunately, this is emblematic of a common recent pattern. These things have been topping up through the years. I’ve been told it was not so important to develop true spiritual perception, and that it would come with the next life; I’ve been routinely lectured, psychologized, and presented with the report of all the wrong thoughts and feelings I supposedly nurture inside; I've been held responsible for other members having become inactive; and today, whatever the deeper reasons, I’m more and more criticized for who I am, through the pretext of what I express. Not that I’m above critique of course, and I will always be thankful to Cleric and Ashvin for bringing Anthroposophy and your related insights to my knowledge, but the discussions have become too constrained and negative at this point, and we might agree on this at least, that a break would be good. While I will surely miss the forum habit and the (hope for) unprejudiced discussion, I need to do the work in calmer psychic conditions, and hopefully you’ll enjoy smoother conversations now.

Federica,

I had missed this comment until Cleric just quoted it. Upon my periodic reviews of the threads on this forum, I can confirm that it certainly wouldn't be the same place without you and your contributions. If we compare this to a meditative session, it starts off more smoothly and streamlined before the chaotic oscillations set in, yet we will never make any progress if we give up on the concentrated effort at that time. Perhaps the calmer psychic conditions will also manifest if we take a break from discussion, since clearly your discussions with Cleric have gone smoother and have actually seemed to lead in the direction of growing orientation and reevaluating previous conceptions. It will take an effort for both of us to refrain from responding to the other when we feel like we have something important to say on a topic, but that itself would also be a great exercise in cultivating inner strength. It reminds me of this quote from Steiner that I was just listening to:


https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA012/Engli ... 2_c03.html

But it would not accomplish much to remain at a standstill with only such economies as those indicated above. For greater results, still more is necessary. A far greater treasure still of power to create feeling must be supplied to the soul than is possible in this way alone. For instance, as a test, one must expose oneself to certain outer impressions, and then wholly deny oneself the feelings that “normally” arise as a result. One must, for instance, face an occurrence that “normally” excites the soul, and absolutely and totally forbid oneself the excitation. This can be accomplished either by actually confronting such an experience, or by conjuring it up imaginatively. The imaginative method is even better for a really fruitful occult training. As the student is initiated into Imagination, either before his preparation for Inspiration or simultaneously with it, he should actually be in a position to place an occurrence imaginatively before the soul with the same force as if it were in fact taking place.—If, therefore, in the course of long inner work the student ever again and again subjects himself to things and events, yet denies himself the corresponding “normal” feelings, a fertile ground for Inspiration will be created in his soul.

[Federica]

Hey Federica,
I really hope your decision has only been temporary, coming from a moment of affection. Your presence here is valued, and it is largely thanks to your participation that the forum has been going on. I know that the conversations often go into oscillatory modes, but on the bright side - this is how we all learn. Human exchanges have a long way to go before they become dance-like. At this time we routinely step on each other's feet, we bump, we sometimes don't sense when we should lead and when we should follow. But if we look upon it as a learning process, we'll surely find also the motivation to keep going. Of course, I'm not writing this as an excuse, that we should not worry when we hurt each other, but we surely need to also find the strength to go on perfecting the sacred dance of existence.

Thanks for your thought, Cleric. Yes, it is a temporary decision, necessarily. You’re right, I've learned a whole lot through these three plus years of discussions, which I am grateful for, and my motivation to go on perfecting the sacred dance of existence is only stronger now.

[Federica]

Federica,

I had missed this comment until Cleric just quoted it. Upon my periodic reviews of the threads on this forum, I can confirm that it certainly wouldn't be the same place without you and your contributions. If we compare this to a meditative session, it starts off more smoothly and streamlined before the chaotic oscillations set in, yet we will never make any progress if we give up on the concentrated effort at that time. Perhaps the calmer psychic conditions will also manifest if we take a break from discussion, since clearly your discussions with Cleric have gone smoother and have actually seemed to lead in the direction of growing orientation and reevaluating previous conceptions. It will take an effort for both of us to refrain from responding to the other when we feel like we have something important to say on a topic, but that itself would also be a great exercise in cultivating inner strength. It reminds me of this quote from Steiner that I was just listening to:

Ashvin, you regularly miss posts. Perhaps tighten the Moiré patterns, or maybe just review your notification settings
(humor). On your exercise for cultivating inner strength, thanks for placing an order for me too, but if you notice, Cleric recommends the opposite exercise, for inner strength, so I'll take that if you don't mind?

[AshvinP]

Federica,

I had missed this comment until Cleric just quoted it. Upon my periodic reviews of the threads on this forum, I can confirm that it certainly wouldn't be the same place without you and your contributions. If we compare this to a meditative session, it starts off more smoothly and streamlined before the chaotic oscillations set in, yet we will never make any progress if we give up on the concentrated effort at that time. Perhaps the calmer psychic conditions will also manifest if we take a break from discussion, since clearly your discussions with Cleric have gone smoother and have actually seemed to lead in the direction of growing orientation and reevaluating previous conceptions. It will take an effort for both of us to refrain from responding to the other when we feel like we have something important to say on a topic, but that itself would also be a great exercise in cultivating inner strength. It reminds me of this quote from Steiner that I was just listening to:

Ashvin, you regularly miss posts. Perhaps tighten the Moiré patterns, or maybe just review your notification settings
(humor). On your exercise for cultivating inner strength, thanks for placing an order for me too, but if you notice, Cleric recommends the opposite exercise, for inner strength, so I'll take that if you don't mind?

The fact that you can only perceive the meaning of my post as an "order" means Steiner's exercise of resisting the habitual feeling-based responses is probably optimal for us, and at this stage of entanglement, it means laying off the responses altogether. Nothing I write to you can be understood dispassionately, anymore. Once I stop responding to yours, you won't have much choice but to stop responding to mine, anyway (although you may still try to do so indirectly, let's see...). Let the path to Inspiration begin

I will also leave you with this beautifully expressed quote from a wise thinker:

So, is Anthroposophy a science or a cult? First of all, as Ashvin said, it’s coercive and misleading to force the thinking flow into either/or ‘switches’ like so. Think of a magnificent mountain torrent streaming downhill, the water dances and sings in untamed and ever novel combinations of swirls, falls and spouts. That’s how our thinking could flow, in harmony with its (spiritual) environment. Now think of long, concrete edges being built alongside that mountain stream, and of dams installed to streamline the current. The character of the waterflow is now totally different, at odds with its natural environment. Our thinking flow too has become estranged from its spiritual environment, in the constriction of external grids.

Metaphors again and again? Yes... It seems to me that one very basic, but significant, way to start harmonizing our thinking within its natural (spiritual) environment is precisely to allow ourselves to welcome such metaphors when they come to mind, like the torrent image here. Today we have a strong inner resistance to noticing, let alone expressing, such images. We push them away, we think they are childish. We think it’s much better to come up with a clean, elegant, abstract reasoning to speak our mind. What serious thinker today would speak of torrents and what not, to make a logical argument about anything? It would just be plain ridiculous!

I believe we have come to feel ashamed of our living thinking, afraid to sound like a 5 year-old, or like a gauche version of an ancient poet. Similarly, one might resist, and even judge, the use of these colorful highlighters in posts, for example: “I’m not a 12 year-old whimsical school-kid, am I”. My impression is, these are great attuning habits, like warmups, to make our normal thinking more playable and harmonious, even prior to any concentration or meditation. I believe it says to the spheres: “Hey I am ready to play with you, or at least, I would like to be ready!” In this sense it’s also a gesture of humility. It says: “I used to be proud of the sleek and fashionable intellectual framework, Bayesian or whatever. I used to express ideas in the form of these sharp silhouettes, and enjoy the intellectual high, feeling so evolved and self-complacent, but I now recognize self-indulgence in that, and I want to be more truthful to the authentic nature of this thinking force I am a part of.
...
My impression, from the perspective of my minuscule point of progression on the path, is that there is no plunge to be taken. We are already in the water, immersed in the pool. We are already endowed with thinking. What we need to do is to simply stop grabbing the edge, and start swimming towards the center of the pool. We already can swim, we can move our available thinking function, but we need to trust our ability enough, to dare to quit our stronghold, to release the grip to the edge of vicarious, sandbox thinking, and “venture a little deeper than we are normally comfortable with”, to the center of the pool.”

[Federica]

Federica,

I had missed this comment until Cleric just quoted it. Upon my periodic reviews of the threads on this forum, I can confirm that it certainly wouldn't be the same place without you and your contributions. If we compare this to a meditative session, it starts off more smoothly and streamlined before the chaotic oscillations set in, yet we will never make any progress if we give up on the concentrated effort at that time. Perhaps the calmer psychic conditions will also manifest if we take a break from discussion, since clearly your discussions with Cleric have gone smoother and have actually seemed to lead in the direction of growing orientation and reevaluating previous conceptions. It will take an effort for both of us to refrain from responding to the other when we feel like we have something important to say on a topic, but that itself would also be a great exercise in cultivating inner strength. It reminds me of this quote from Steiner that I was just listening to:

Ashvin, you regularly miss posts. Perhaps tighten the Moiré patterns, or maybe just review your notification settings
(humor). On your exercise for cultivating inner strength, thanks for placing an order for me too, but if you notice, Cleric recommends the opposite exercise, for inner strength, so I'll take that if you don't mind?

The fact that you can only perceive the meaning of my post as an "order" means Steiner's exercise of resisting the habitual feeling-based responses is probably optimal for us, and at this stage of entanglement, it means laying off the responses altogether. Nothing I write to you can be understood dispassionately, anymore. Once I stop responding to yours, you won't have much choice but to stop responding to mine, anyway (although you may still try to do so indirectly, let's see...). Let the path to Inspiration begin

I will also leave you with this beautifully expressed quote from a wise thinker:

Well, you said "it will take an effort for both of us to refrain from responding to the other", as if it went without saying that I would remain active on the forum while refraining from responding to you. But true, you can absolutely shape my potential by your choices. Thanks for the quote! Not sure if you read in it any specific connection with the present (saying this in principle, I understand you will not respond ) but interesting, in any case. Then, I felt that the usual self risks feeling ashamed of living thinking, while now I feel like there's way more chance that I feel ashamed of normal thinking.